December 31, 2017 Night

Good evening! New Years Eve, final update of 2017. Mostly clear and 2 degrees in Delmar, NY. Breezy, 16 mph breeze from the northwest. The current wind chill is -16. I can hear that wind whipping around at times this evening. 

I’m glad I decided to stay home. New Years Eve being a Sunday this year meant there is no buses running, so I would have to drive and I’m not going to do that especially after going out for a drink on New Years Eve. Much too cold for a midnight hike this year or camping out. 

Tonight will be mostly clear, with a low of -5 degrees at 6am. 23 degrees below normal. Maximum wind chill around -22 at 6am; Northwest wind 9 to 16 mph. That’s cold. In 2016, we had cloudy skies, clearing in the early hours of the next day. It got down to 20 degrees. The record low of -18 occurred back in 1970. Okay, maybe not that cold. But the heck with going out. The electric supplemental heat makes my bedroom comfortable. 

Tonight will have a Waxing Gibbous Moon with 99% illuminated.The moon will set tomorrow at 6:37 am. The Wolf Moon will be tomorrow with mostly cloudy skies. The sun will rise at 7:25 am with the first light at 6:53 am, which is 6 seconds later than yesterday. Tonight will have 14 hours and 52 minutes of darkness, a decrease of 47 seconds over last night.

New Year’s Day will be sunny, with a high of 11 degrees at 3pm. 20 degrees below normal. Maximum wind chill around -22 at 6am; Northwest wind 8 to 13 mph. A year ago, we had light snow. The high last year was 38 degrees. The record high of 57 was set in 1966. 9.2 inches of snow fell back in 1961.

Bitterly cold for next weekend too. Saturday, mostly sunny and cold, with a high near 6. Sunday, mostly sunny, with a high near 18. Typical average high for the weekend is 31 degrees.

Despite the cold, I plan to head out skiing tomorrow. I will put on the face mask and long john’s and maybe those insulated overalls that I own that are widely used by cowboys in the Midwest. I will stay warm I guess. It’s winter. 

I was so happy that I found that I could get a 12 volt addressable LED strip. I want to build an LED sign next but I kind of wanted to avoid buying yet another power supply and I prefer working with 12 VDC as it’s more efficient and requires thinner wire than 5 VDC. The later strings are simpler to design but the 12 VDC ones are superior in all other ways. I’m leaning towards building a sign that will be 10 rows by 30 columns or 150 x 500 mm or 6 inches by 20 inches. Not enormous but still still quite colorful as they are full color LEDs. I could go longer and narrower but the next number that divides into 30 is six which is too few columns. I am going to mount them on foam board which I will paint black. 

I ended up spending a lot of time at the library studying various electronics projects, and thinking about what I should build next.  So many options but I want to do things that are affordable and not too difficult to solder. I want to buy one of those LED cube kits next but I’m undecided on what to get. It’s kind of fun to order directly from China as it’s so cheap that way but you never know for sure if you are going to get it undamaged and you have to wait up to a month. 

It was so cold going down to the library, that I decided to spend the rest of the day inside. With enough layers I should be fine but so be it. 

Got a DVD out of the library, about the 1971 burglary of the FBI files, which talked about the activist which broke into an FBI office in Meads, PA releasing previously undisclosed documents about federal spying on a wide variety of peace and progressive groups.

My previous post, shares some of my thoughts about the year that was and my hopes for next year. Besides making cookies and watching that movie that was my New Years Eve. 

In four weeks on January 28 the sun will be setting at 5:04 pm, which is 32 minutes later then tonight. In 2017 on that day, we had snow, cloudy skies and temperatures between 37 and 30 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 31 and 15 degrees. The record high of 56 degrees was set back in 1916.

Looking ahead, tommorow is New Years Day, National Hug Day is in 3 weeks, the Blue Moon is a month away, Winnie the Pooh Day is in 7 weeks and April Fools Day and Easter is in 13 weeks.

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